Faith, at least in some quarters, had almost become a dirty word, such that to call someone a “person of faith” was to question their intellectual adequacy and to suggest an unreasonable commitment to the implausible and non-empirical. This attitude was typical of that particular element of the “anti-faith” brigade that held that science was the all-conquering, all-sufficient means of answering any and all allowable questions. They of course claimed for themselves the authority to decide which were the “allowable” questions. They had a habit of ruling as unallowable those questions that they didn’t like or which their methods of choice couldn’t cope with. Theirs was always a highly questionable (and questioned) approach and it has not aged well. At least in its “New Atheist” form, its influence does seem to have ebbed somewhat.
Perhaps this was the inevitable consequence of the post-modern fashion of arguing that as nothing was true, anything might be. Truth became merely a personal perspective with no interpersonal authority. Therefore even “faith” could not be criticised too harshly, particularly when held, practised and discussed privately, away from the tricky and pressing issues that are the focus of public dialogue. But although largely relegated to the private sphere, faith began to become at least semi-respectable. Mind you, this kind of faith was an odd, unattractive, sort of beast. It had no purchase on, or relevance to, anything that apparently mattered.
More recently there has been another development of note, for the post-modern tide has also receded (mainly because in its strongest forms it was self-refuting). Some commentators, particularly, but not exclusively, on the political right, have begun to argue that in the West faith (specifically in its Christian form) had bequeathed us all certain cherished values and views. They traced back to a faith-based heritage important concepts like human dignity and equality, tolerance, pluralism and more. But because for the best part of a couple of centuries these very foundations had not just been rejected but thoroughly trashed, they had noticed that some of these concepts and values themselves, not merely the soil from which they sprang, have begun to be questioned. First in the academy, then in institutions and finally in the culture, values like equality before the law and human rights were seen as being in danger to everyone’s detriment. Consider the value of truth and speaking the truth. Once, both in the UK and the US, it was a basic assumption that in public as well as private life being honest and speaking the truth was a “good thing”. This came directly from the ninth (of ten) commandments, and commitments flowing from it. Why were such directives worth paying attention to? Because they were an aspect of health creaturely living and came backed by the authority of the Creator of the created. But having relegated said Creator to the role of remote first mover and tinkerer with watches, and then having spent a long time denying His existence at all, this scheme loses much of its force. Maybe such notions are not as “true” or as useful as was once supposed. They can be dispensed with at no real cost.
Currently, on both sides of the Atlantic we appear to be testing this to destruction. So we find ourselves mired in untruth but have discovered some of the costs. Scepticism quickly turns to cynicism, and trust is rapidly eroded. At least in the UK our political system managed to remove one of our most-noted untruth tellers of recent years. Boris is, at least for the political moment, no more. He is playing no obvious role in our current general election campaign. What did for him was his propensity for being less than honest, presumably on the basis that the rest of us either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care. However, it is worth noting that as well as having a semi-detached relationship with truth and integrity, he also turned out to lack basic competence when it came to running a government. Perhaps if he had done his day job better he would have got away with his truth problem. But the Boris episode, has tended to reinforce the old joke about how you tell when a politician is lying – his lips move. While funny, this used not to be particularly true. There were always exceptions, and there was a degree of obfuscation and hypocrisy involved. But by and large politicians knew that while they might get away with claiming grey that was either black or white they had to avoid insulting our intelligence by claiming that white was black (or vice versa).
On the other side of the Atlantic, even the small crumb of comfort one might take from Boris’ demise is striking in its absence. Trump has largely been exposed as suffering from the same disease that afflicted Boris (or possibly it’s the other way round) and yet he is very much still around. A large slice of his electorate, including a lot of “evangelicals”, seem to prefer myths to truth. Reasons keep being found for why what once would have made him unelectable (his flat out lies, his abuse of the law not to mention his legally established abuse of women) turn out not to be that big a problem. Truth has become tainted while rank mistrust (occasionally accompanied by politically inspired violence) are all too observable. All this in what once had been thought of as a stable and (largely) prosperous democracy one that could be depended upon to uphold commonly accepted values of decency and integrity. Now even that hallmark of a democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, has been attacked and is under attack.
Spend several centuries dismissing what underlies the values that have shaped our culture, specifically faith in the God who reveals Himself in Scripture, and prepare to loose those values. Perhaps other foundations can be found, but most of the replacements that have been tried do not appear to have worked. Some no doubt celebrate the prospect of the demise of values that might loosely be called Biblical. For them the values themselves, as well as the foundation one which they were built, may have been the problem all along. And some have argued that we are seeing the fruit of a concerted campaign to undermine what had been widely accepted as valuable. Maybe might is right after all and human beings have no inherent dignity simply by virtue of the fact that they are human beings. Maybe inequality is just how things are and beyond that it is how things should be. While I view this brave new world as being intolerable, maybe you don’t.
However, if you feel that something important and valuable (and true) is being lost, much of this argument can be turned on its head. Perhaps the faith that gave rise to what had been valued is worth another look. This kind of reasoning prompted Justin Brierley to discus, first in his podcast “Unbelievable” and more recently in his book “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God”, the proposition that faith is making a comeback (or at least its “ebb” has begun to reverse). It is worth pointing out that Brierley is a Christian, and his book is a work of apologetics; he writes to commend the Christian faith as being at the very least worth investigating. It could be he’s seeing a pattern where none actually exists. This is essentially the argument of Ralph Jones in his review of Brierley’s book in “The New Humanist” (but then, to be fair, it would be). But from Douglas Murray to Russell Brand something appears to be stirring.
At least “faith” is no longer a dirty word.
